32 percent of Tea Party candidates win

That’s the title an unbiased news organization would have used to describe the number of Tea Party backed candidates who won. However, in their endeavor to “lean forward”, MSNBC has given up all claim to objectivity and their title to the story shows it. “Just 32% of Tea Party candidates win”.

Really – “just” 32%? So how does that compare to the Netroots effort?

And 32% means what in raw numbers? Well it means 50% of their Senate candidates won (with one still undecided). But for a brand new organization, 5 US Senators isn’t bad at all. It is certainly enough to counter the Snowe/Collins contingent.

While 82 of their Congressional candidates lost, 40 won. That’s a caucus in anyone’s world, to include the left. The Blue Dog Caucus was 54. It is more than enough to keep the Tea Party agenda in the fore (assuming they aren’t co-opted as were the Blue Dogs who are now down to about 20 or so left).

So for a leaderless, grassroots organization which just recently emerged, I’d say 32% is pretty phenomenal.

21 Responses to 32 percent of Tea Party candidates win

Eh 32% is only ok. It a two way race you like to see them with a win percentage around 50%.
I live in Delaware which is a very moderate state. The Tea Party essentially marginalized the Republican party here for this election cycle. I can’t be too sad to see Mike Castle go, but running Christine O’Donnell in the Senate race was a horrible idea.

That’s just silly. “Better” does not mean COIN (conservative only in name). I’m with Rush on this…O’Donnell was brilliant compared to Boxer or Murry. Pew showed she was THE most covered candidate in the nation, and virtually all of it was negative. Even the loss of that seat was useful.
The Political Class is getting schooled.

(1) O’Donnell is either an idiot or had idiots working for her. Even if the latter is true, she’s still responsible for her campaign. Her campaign was poorly run and half of her mistakes weren’t covered by the national media. Her campaign couldn’t even write checks or meet due dates on time. They routinely screwed up even with local media who supporter her.
(2) Castle is not much of conservative. He might vote our way 50% of the time. Compare that to Coons who is not a conservative at all. He’ll never vote our way. And Coons now has incumbency in a state where Democrats have at huge advantage in the number of registered voters. How is that better again?

First, how do you know that Coons will not vote “our way”? He is a political critter, and he can see which way the tide has turned.
Second, Rick Perry is supposed to have run a swell campaign. I know better. It was deeply flawed, and he still owes money to paid staff from months back.
Third, if Delaware voters are so dominantly Deemocrat, they get who they deserve. They CAN learn better…or not. Up to them.
Forth, people like Rove NOW HAVE TO PAY ATTENTION to the TEA Party. If they want pragmatism, this is part of the new equation for determining “pragmatic”. We will actively seek the election of people with views that match our own. Better provide them, or else.

Castle is not much of conservative. He might vote our way 50% of the time. Compare that to Coons who is not a conservative at all. He’ll never vote our way. And Coons now has incumbency in a state where Democrats have at huge advantage in the number of registered voters. How is that better again

>>>>> We’ve seen how useful it is to have a “50% conservative” in office. No thanks.

Look, in certain strategic situations (Scott Brown, or Kirk from IL) I say grit teeth and bare it. We needed Brown to provide the 41st vote at that time. We needed Kirk to sit in the lame duck session. Fine. That’s about all the leeway I’m interested in offering at the moment.

I’d really like to stress to all the folks who are tactical thinkers that “better candidate” does not necessarily equal “more electable”. At least not to someone for whom elections are not the end goal, but merely a means to an end. A candidate that does not further then desired end is not a “better candidate”, no matter how electable they are.

I would have hoped that Jeffords, Specter, and the Maine sisters would have taught us that.

I would only put up with a COIN (I like that better than RINO lol!) if their election brang something strategic to the table, as mentioned above with Brown and Kirk. That’s it. Otherwise no dice. We have a good shot at flipping the Senate in ’12, and it’s bad enough that we have Murkowski and the Maine twits to deal with. No more 1/2 players. The caucus will be stronger overall for it.

For the tea party, it wan’t a two way race. It was usually a two way primary and then a two way general. And Miller faced (is facing) a three way general.
The probability of winning two coin tosses is 25%. So 32% is more than OK.

If the idea is to form a third party, then winning 1/3 of the races they entered doesn’t sound bad. If the idea was to push an agenda upon an existing party, which resisted the push to some degree, 32% is very good.

I think that this is key. The GOP (hopefully) got the message loud and clear. For that matter, we may suppose that certain democrats also get the message: there is a sizable, motivated and rather angry fraction of the electorate out there, and it is also conservative. Politicians from any but the most blue district / state will vote liberal at their electoral peril.

The “Tea Party” didn’t exist 30 months ago and is still just a loose, noisy bunch of activists. Listening to the radio Tuesday evening I was amazed at the left’s inability to grasp the idea that a group of individuals could unite behind one idea… “STOP THE DAMNED SPENDING!!” They’re still (unsuccessfully) trying to define the Tea Party.
Yeah, it was just 32% this election. But unless we see a tremendous change in this increasing debt, 2012 will be a different story.
(Use your Al Pacino voice)… “We’re just gettin’ warmed up!”

Guys…!!! Point being missed here!!!
The nation was shifted…tectonically…to the CONSERVATIVE end of the scale.
Incumbents…who NEVER lose…were thrown out in fist-fulls, and even those who squeaked by like Boxer and Reid were fighting for their lives.
NOBODY misses the message. Well, except maybe Alan Greyson…and he’s just crazy.